1888 N162 Cap Anson (SGC 20) For Trade / Sale

[Scocs]

I don't really want to hijack this seller's thread, but there were several blacks in pro baseball until Anson personally saw fit to end it.

I would rather have an Oscar Charleston or John Heny Lloyd card in poor condition than an Anson card in gem mint.

But good luck to the seller on this undeniably aesthetically beautiful card!

[1952boyntoncollector]

Originally Posted by Scocs

I don't really want to hijack this seller's thread, but there were several blacks in pro baseball until Anson personally saw fit to end it.

I would rather have an Oscar Charleston or John Heny Lloyd card in poor condition than an Anson card in gem mint.

But good luck to the seller on this undeniably aesthetically beautiful card!

What about the large gap between when Anson stopped playing and when Jackie started to play, theres probably a lot more blame to go around on celebrated HOF players than Anson...

[Scocs]

I agree that there is a lot of blame to be spread, but Anson was the most respected player of his time and he set the precedent for all who followed until Rickey and Robinson.

But the N162 is still one of the nicest looking baseball cards ever produced....

[gracecollector]

Originally Posted by Scocs

I don't really want to hijack this seller's thread, but there were several blacks in pro baseball until Anson personally saw fit to end it.

I would rather have an Oscar Charleston or John Heny Lloyd card in poor condition than an Anson card in gem mint.

But good luck to the seller on this undeniably aesthetically beautiful card!

Saying Cap Anson "singlehandedly" kept blacks out of pro ball is laughable. It was the team owners, and later commissioner Landis, that had the power to do so, and did. No one singlehandedly created the color line - it was a group effort. Anson's racism was just the most reported. Many others at the time and throughout the next 60 years had the same opinions, both players and management.

[Scocs]

Again, last time I'll say this: of course team owners and Landis all saw fit to maintain their "gentlemen's agreement" from the late 19th century through the mid-twentieth century. My point is that Anson, as the most powerful, respected, and visible professional baseball figure of his era, set the whole pendulum in motion and no one until Chandler, Rickey, and Robinson was willing to stop it.

Adrian Anson saying that my Chicago baseball club -- and any and all professional baseball clubs -- will not not play against any team that has an African-American player on it simply held much more weight than if some generic racist player had said the same thing.

And as far as that earlier "PC nonsense" comment goes: consider yourself lucky that you were born a white male when you were, and consider yourself existentially lucky had you been born a white male a hundred years ago. Because if you weren't, and you had all the talent and skill of Ruth, Wagner, and
Johnson, you would have toiled in near obscurity in the Negro Leagues. That's not political correctness -- that's reality.

Perhaps it is unfair to blame one individual for institutional racism, but in my opinion, Anson used the power and privilege of his own skin color to exclude multiple generations of very deserving and gifted athletes from playing the game at the highest level, the game they loved just as much as he did.

Scott